


Night of Walpurgis

by SeaSongMountain



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angels and demons (free-form), F/M, Lilith!Bedelia, Lucifer!Hannibal, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 09:52:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16216571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaSongMountain/pseuds/SeaSongMountain
Summary: From Victorian to modern times, their story is a suffocating swirl of darkness that spans the times.Does God ever feel lonely?The Devil does.Loneliness cannot be shared. Folie à deux, however, is.The sun does not rise. The Night of Walpurgis does not end.





	Night of Walpurgis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheMadHamster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMadHamster/gifts).
  * A translation of [男巫派对](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6954739) by [TheMadHamster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMadHamster/pseuds/TheMadHamster). 
  * A translation of [男巫派对](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6954739) by [TheMadHamster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMadHamster/pseuds/TheMadHamster). 



> Standard Declaration: The characters belong to whoever they belong to. 
> 
> The plot and essence of his work should be credited towards the lovely TheMadHamster.
> 
> I read the original Chinese fic and loved it so much that I wanted to try my hand at translating it to English. Hopefully, this lovely fic can reach more Fannibals. It is somewhat hard to translate Hannibal fics. Please bear with me. I'll be happy to correct any mistakes!
> 
> If you like this fic, please go through the link to the original fic and give TheMadHamster some well-deserved love!

“You gonna start?”

“Yes. I’ll blur out some details, of course. You don’t have to believe me. Think of as a story, if you’d like.”

“Nah, Will. You won’t lie. ”

“So serious.”

“Go ahead and start.”

“I need a cigarette.”

“Then get one and fucking start.”

.........  
.........

“He was the Devil.”

“Who?”

“Hannibal, Hannibal Lecter.”

“What a cliché.”

“He was an Angel.”

“You know, that’s what I said about a cello girl once.”

“Sometimes, he was a Conqueror.”

“Hitler?”

“No, Attila.”

“A lover-boy too, eh?”

“He was a hedonist. Delighting in the scent of fear.”

“He is this huge figure in your mind, isn’t he? You don’t even know how to describe him.”

“He is not a monster of the sort you see in ‘Silent Hill’. He is the only King I have ever laid eyes on. He is a world and moral philosophy all onto his own.”

“When did you two meet?”

“When youths dreamed most about their futures. When the Queen had given up almost all her powers. When the Tower was soon to be made public. When Wilde was still a famous poet before his notorious incarceration… in 1894.”

~~~~~~~~~~

1894.  
Plymouth.  
A darkened road in western parts of town.  
Fog creeped through the air.

Light streamed out of a rosy window, the sill of which is all covered in climbing roses and capucine overlaying its fancy stonework. Stonework that shared its overly elaborate motifs with the columns and the gate.

An old man ambled past, pausing under a streetlamp bedecked with a metal bird.

A whisky bottle, Dalmore by the label, rolled out of a sideway alley, over a manhole cover, and hit the curb, breaking the late night chill.

He glanced towards the dark and narrow alley, smelling an awful stink.

Waste paper, glass shards, broken cutlery, fish cans, fruit peelings, moldy food, oil-stained boots. People threw all kinds of things into these alleys. Sometimes one could even find construction materials of stone and sand, and deformed barrels that once held methanol and acetate. Plymouth is full of these alleys. Even the wealthy western parts of town have their fair share.

The old man picked up the bottle, overturned it and shook its meager remains into his mouth, and threw it back into the alley. The wind carried his dry laugh low.

His twig-like fingers reached into his pocket and unearthed a piece of greenish hard bread. He bit into it. The moldish taste made him cough and choke. The irritated old man threw it away, taking the Queen’s name in vain, and ground his heels into the crumbs.

He considered going into the alley to look for food.

And a knife pressed from the back passed through his coat, passed through _him_.

Warm blood spilled over, covering the handle, covering the holder. The old man didn’t spare one look for his murderer. He didn’t care for it. He has waited long enough for this moment, the moment of his death.

The murderer was a young man. Dressed almost the same way in a short vest and poorly sewn trousers. Except that his shoes weren’t rubber soled. He stole these loafers.

The young man pried open the old man’s fingers for the cane, put his teeth to the golden coin hanging from the handle, found it to be copper-plated instead, and threw that into the alley too.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fourth floor.

The silken drapes parted.

Someone had watched. His dark red eyes bore witness.

Droplets dripped from his hair, quietly hitting his velvety robe.

A fireplace burned merrily. Sparks rose and vanished.

One had no need for clothes in a room warm as this.

A blonde woman sat at a coffee table, pressing bullets marked with Royal Navy cross into a revolver magazine.

Metal against metal. They pinged and sang.

The fire burned.

“We should return, Lux.”

Lux turned to look at Bedelia Du Maurier.

“It is Hannibal here, Lily. Hannibal Lecter.”

“You yourself asked me to call you Lux in place of Lucifer.”

“But this is Plymouth. Everyone has a name, for their tombstones, for their history, for their legacy.”

Bedelia studied Hannibal.

When away from other people, Hannibal did not like fastening his robes shut. He enjoyed it, his muscles, skin, and hair. His masculine and powerful clean-cut lines.  
He cleansed himself daily with all sorts of bathing products, dabbed musk onto his neck and wrists. With the most fashionable grey leather gloves, top hat, black suit, flannel trousers, and checkered tie, others saw him as a conservative gentleman, most conservative, and most gentlemanly.

“Hesitating? Are you reluctant to leave?”

Hannibal did not reply.

Bedelia judged herself to be correct.

“You have sojourned here for almost two thousand year. You love the world that your Father Created, more than He Himself. You love the humans for their curiosity, differently from your Father’s love. Do you now see why He loves these ants so?”

“I only wished to know why He loves them so. And now I do.”

“Why?”

“He was tired of being surrounded by Angels, those of the Versailles mural kind. He falls into loneliness. And the individual souls of humans put on such good shows of comedy and tragedy. He indulges in their performances.”

“Would you shed a tear for them?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then you have fallen into the same loneliness that your Father suffers, Lux.”

She rested the gun on the coffee table in favor of two wine glasses, one of which she gave to Hannibal.

He dropped his eyes to study the fluid.

“You like wine more than blood.”

Bedelia raised her right hand, gently tracing Hannibal’s forehead, cheek, down to his chin.

She loved Hannibal.

In the eternity they’ve spent together, she has guided him, taken care of him, humored and accepted his stubbornness and capriciousness, his shortcomings that stemmed from his Father’s spoiling. He is prideful, hedonistic, and uncompromising. Unchangeable. Intractable.

“We should return, Lux. Humans have become uncontrollable, not even subject to your Father. They have lost their Faith. In this age of electric lights, steamboats, and metal engines, of dark smog hanging over cities, people can no longer be understood as they were. Perhaps He, too, has abandoned them.”

Hannibal bowed his head.

Bedelia continued, “He still loves you. He watches you. You are the most favored of His Angels. So He asked Michael to accompany you. I am honored that you chose me instead. No one refuses you, Lux. Though I know that you dislike your Father, all His Angels, and me.”

“No, Lily. I need you.” Hannibal dropped a kiss on her fingers.

And then he dropped her hand unceremoniously.

He returned to the window, the window through which he gazed at the human world and shone curiosity in his eyes. The human world of a heavily divisive, polluted, and cold roads in western parts of Plymouth.

Bedelia sighed, for she knew that Hannibal has refused to honor his promise to “return”, yet again.

Every time, she was defeated. The legendary persuasive powers of Lilith seemed to not work on him anymore.

She no longer knew his wishes.

He overturned the goblet of King’s blood that she gifted him.  
He bought the robe de gaulle of Marie Antoinette.  
He spent fifty days in the Louvre.  
He loved wine more than human blood.  
He threw the Divine Comedy into the fireplace, treasuring instead the much criticized Wuthering Heights.

A month ago, he killed a couple on the cusp of breakup, dismembered and reconstructed them into a statue of Hermaphroditus placed amongst cherry trees.  
Yesterday, he walked into the most ill-furbished theatre in all of Hampshire, the Rodrick’s.

~~~~~~~~~~

Outside the backdoor of Rodrick’s, cherry petals fall one by one, into Will’s eyes.

His eyes were blue as a glassy lake, with long lashes and delicate irises.

He wears an old shirt turning yellow at the collar, flax work trousers, and a pair of canvas shoes.

The legs of his pants were coming part at the seams and carefully rolled up to avoid further wear. So his ankles showed their thin selves, in the coldest month of winter.

The most presentable thing on him is his sad looking trilby, a gift from the theater owner Rodrick.

Rodrick boasted to him that he wore this hat to a private party of Walter Pater once. Will tended to disbelieve Rodrick. After all, he has never seen his name in print or heard it in social discussion.

Will wished for a match. But he didn’t have one.

Cherry petals fall one by one, onto the dirt-covered coffin.

“We dedicate these tears of loves to you. We shall meet again in Heaven and enjoy eternity…”

Not far from here, it might have been the last cherry tree of Plymouth.

The name “Page” was squarely inscribed upon the tombstone.

His friend Page, whose life on Earth was only made up of bread crumbs, potatoes, and strips of salted meat; of dusty basement, two changes of clothes, and heavy pneumonia; of a thin coffin and a eulogy by the priest, did not want to go.

Even before Page’s death, he tried so hard to breathe, through his dry cracked and purplish lips.

No one had asked for a doctor, or had given him any broth. They only prayed.

Around these parts, to be sick was to die.

People left the burying ground in threes and twos.

Will coughed.

Rain fell.

He blinked raindrops off his lashes.

The tip of his nose turned red in cold.

Uncontrollably, he clenched his fists. 

Dark clouds hang low, suffocating the sky. Everything was grey. The two-story smoked buildings of Rodrick’s theater stood silently at Will’s back.

The blackish green tint crawling up the walls might be dirt or fungus. One can’t really tell. But it is doubtful that even fungus can survive in air unbreathable as this.

The second floor of the theater were largely used as storage rooms, no need for windows. Only inhabited rooms had boarded up windows that did little to stop the wind and the rain.

Disease——Death——Burial.

Convenient.

Mr. Rodrick first used the unclaimed land at the theater’s back as a backyard, then turned it into a cemetery for the homeless and the orphaned.

“I wish the entire process could be more convenient,” He said, “For example, we can skip the dying part and just bury the sick already. Perhaps next year, we can get new cherries.”

“Dinnertime, Will.” An aproned girl working her fingers through her lanky hair, walked over and smiled shyly at Will.

She was pretty.

She was on the cusp of puberty, not yet a woman, with cheeks rouged by the cold humid wind carrying chemical pollutants, lips purpled by sickness, eye shadowed by her tiredness. A rose, not yet fully bloomed, already showed signs of withering and wasting away.

No one appreciated her beauty in all of Plymouth. No one but Will.

She played the swallow in The Happy Prince. So people called her Swallow.

Cherry petals fell one by one. The last becoming one with the mud.

They went in the theater through the backdoor. The first door led to the backstage, also the actors’ dressing room.

The clown’s fake collar, the con man’s striped shirt, the velvet vest that has fallen prey to bugs and holes, dresses covered with dirt. That corset, which according to Rodrick had once been worn by a countess, had ten out of sixteen steel bones broken, and its once silken clasps fortified with rope. The only double-breasted tuxedo they owned had fix buttons fallen out and was strictly single-breasted.

The young actors tended to disbelieve Rodrick’s reminiscences of a glorious past. The theater had probably always been like this. Actors had always used allergy-inducing face paint. They had always been fed food with little butter, sugar, or salt.

The theater was full of secrets.

Structural support under the stage was broken. There was a pit in the floor covered by a red felt. One had to be careful not to step on it, lest one falls and get struck by sharp broken wood.

The basement was at most fifty degrees Fahrenheit. But all kids lived there. Rooms on the second floor had no doors or windows or drapes. Only rain.  
The seventy audience seats had mold underneath, maybe even mushrooms. Corruption had started deep in the walls, slowly surfacing. The theater looked on the verge of its collapse.

But Rodrick didn’t care. He wasn’t long for this world anyway, so he often said.

For the past half year, they have been putting on Wilde plays.

The Happy Prince again tonight. Angel by Will, Swallow by Swallow, and the Prince by another young nameless actor.

The curtain rose. Light fell upon the Prince standing on a stone pedestal. He was painted all over in golden powder. Some golden cardboards sticking out of him served as the “thin leaves of fine gold”. He had a pair of bright sapphire eyes, but a “ruby” most certainly did not glow on his sword hilt.

Rodrick played his small part too, dressed in the tuxedo.

“He is as beautiful as a weathercock, only not quite so useful.” Rodrick recited.

There were three members in the audience. After that line, the young mother pressed her handkerchief close to her face, took her little boy’s hand, and left.

The last audience member still sat in his moldy chair, posture oh-so-correct and brown eyes oh-so-seeing.

He liked theater. Young actors, cheap colorful costumes, paper-made gold leaves, thin chimney with hidden coal, faked lightening, he braved the mold, the maggots, the rain dripping from the roof to see it all. He was never late.

Not for any of these past ten nights.

No one knew who he was, or why such a nicely-dressed gentleman would appear in the audience of Rodrick’s theater.

The actors couldn’t tell who was putting on a show more. Their only audience dressed in pricey clothes, used French perfume, and applied pomade wax. He was a distraction from their performance.

This handsome, generous audience with golden brown hair.

He wore a black vest today under a Barathea jacket with satin lapels, a black hat that made his eyes look even more deep-set, and a pair of pointy crown leather shoes. He sat in the middle of the first row.

Yesterday, he had worn a cashmere sweater newly designed in London, a blue pocket square tucked away in the shape of a rose.

“I am glad there is someone in the world who is quite happy.” On stage, a man with a poorly drawn mustache muttered to the Prince statue.

“He looks just like an angel.” Said the children coming through drapes drawn like a cathedral door, wearing scraps of red cloaks and off-white pinafores.

Hannibal silently disagreed. Pale spheres that sometimes emitted piercing light and had no visceral organs or red blood before they came to Earth, angels were far from the children’s idea of beauty.

The Swallow flew over the city and alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince.

Just as she was about to fly away, the Prince cried.

“When I was alive and had a human heart,” said the statue, “I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the palace of Sans-Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep. Far away, far away I see a poor seamstress. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill with a fever.”

The Prince wished for the Swallow to bring them the ruby out of his sword-hilt.  
The next night, the Prince begged for the Swallow to stay one more night.  
Hannibal started to feel like the Prince statue himself.  
The Swallow gave one of the Prince’s sapphire eyes to a poor playwright, the other to a little match-girl, and his gold leaves to the young and the poor.  
The Swallow returned to the Prince.  
“You are blind now”, the Swallow said, “So I will stay with you always.”  
“No, you must go away to Egypt.”  
“I will stay with you always.” Said the Swallow, and slept at the Prince’s feet.

The Swallow sat on the Prince’s shoulder, and told him stories of what she had once seen, of the red ibises standing along the Nile; of the Sphinx; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree. The Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. She flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets. 

The Swallow ate crumbs outside the baker’s door, and slept on the Prince’s shoulder.  
She kissed the Prince on his lips, and fell down dead at his feet.  
A dull metalish crack sounded from the stage. The Prince’s heart fell out, a leaden ball cracked in two.

Tears appeared in Hannibal’s eyes.

He was not touched by the play. That was merely a baseless fairytale.

Loneliness is felt by humans, Angels, and Demons alike. Perhaps even by God.

“Bring me the two most precious things in the City.” Said a baritone from the balconies who didn’t show his face.  
Angel stepped up, and picked up the leaden heart and the dead Swallow.  
God said, “In my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.”

Hannibal’s eyed followed the Angel til the curtains closed completely.

He reminded him of Michael, the blinding sphere that had accompanied him since he was Born.

He even thought that thin Angel on the stage, was Michael with a human soul.

He always thought of Michael in important moments of his life. He had known Michael ever since the first day, liked Michael and preferred his warmth even when he disliked all other Angels.

Four thousand years ago, he left Michael.

Because Michael chose God, not him.

Hannibal sat in the front row.

Actors tried to stealthily watch him from behind the side door.  
They were curious. It wasn’t easy to see a gentleman such as this, even in London. More often, people like him drove by in fancy carriages and only left a glimpse of their faces to the street masses through a crack of their velvet curtains.

Hannibal was aware of their regard. He enjoyed being watched.

He stood up and made for the backstage. 

The actors all hid back.  
“He is coming this way!”  
“Shh! He’ll hear us!”  
“He might tip us. How much do you think it will be, Will?”

Will took off his heavy man-made wings.  
“Doesn’t matter. Rodrick would take it all way anyway.”

They all quieted at this saddening truth.

Though the door was half-open, Hannibal asked politely for permission----  
“May I?”

A brief embarrassed silence ensued. No one wanted this esteemed guest to lay eyes on their pitiful backstage, on the stains and cracks, on their half-painted faces.

The Prince and the Swallow nudged Will out.

He had just taken off the wings, the ropes marking his shirt terribly, his curls messy, his make-up not yet completely washed off. Pushed smack into Hannibal eyes, he dropped his face hurriedly, wiping the glue in his hand on his trousers, hopefully discreetly.

“Your performance was wonderful. Shame that only one does not make a standing ovation.”

“Oh…yeah. I mean, thank you, sir. It wasn’t that good, really.” Head lowered abashedly, Will was made nervous even by the expensive cologne wafting off Hannibal.  
“I would like a signature.” Hannibal studied Will, gaze resting on his down-turned lashes.

An iridium-tipped fountain pen appeared from Hannibal’s pocket. He flicked it open, dipped it in the small beautiful inkpot that he always carries, and offered it to Will along with a leather journal.

Will put his name down on the first page. It was his first time giving a signature. His letters weren’t all pretty.

Hannibal held the signed journal like a treasured contract, blew on it delicately, and put it carefully away.

“Do you mind my appearance?” Hannibal asked, rather abruptly.

“Oh. No, sir. No.” Will just realized that he never met this gentleman’s eyes. He hastily raised his.

Will had child-like eyes.

Hannibal’s pupils contracted.

He discovered something inexplicable in Will.

Something he had seen in the eyes of sorcerers and vampires, none as innocent as Will’s.

A propensity to Fall.

“Would you be surprised if I come again tomorrow?” Hannibal asked, smiling.

“Hardly, sir. You have been coming for ten evenings straight. I would be more surprised if I don’t see you tomorrow.”

“And will my appearance tomorrow change the outcome of the play?”

“For six months we’ve played Wilde. Not a page of his play is ever changed.”

“Perhaps the Prince does not care for Eden. He could return to his palace, along with the Swallow and the Angel. He has a right to, after all.”

“It is God that directions him to heaven.” 

“Perhaps those directions need not be followed.”

“No one can ignore directions of God.”

“How about you then? Would you ignore God’s directions?”

“I, I do not know.” Will coughed, looking down again. “It’s late, sir. I should go back to my room.”

“And I will be here tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> (1) All relevant passages come from "The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde.
> 
> I can't believe that I went from reading fics, to writing my first-ever fics, to trying my hand at translating fics.  
> That, I suppose, is a testament to the charm of Hannibal.
> 
> Warning: Updates may be sporadic.
> 
> Leave me kudos and comments!


End file.
